


Wherever You Stray, I Follow

by Kybee1497



Series: His Last Name [2]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)
Genre: Aged up characters, Alex Mercer Has Anxiety (Julie and the Phantoms), Anxiety, Based on a Pinterest prompt, Everyone Is Alive, Fluff, Good coping mechanisms, M/M, Rating is because they swear occasionally, Secret Marriage, and they were roomates, bc I love a good college au, idk I think it’s healthy, light angst in the form of anxiety, mentioned Flarrie, no beta we die like the himbos, only in the sense that Alex doesn’t know they’re married, what do I know tho, willie is a good bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 07:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30034842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kybee1497/pseuds/Kybee1497
Summary: It was also the hoodie that he wore when he was having a bad day. When the stress was a little harder to deal with than usual. Or when his parents were a little too much. On those days, Alex had the sleeves pulled all the way down with only his fingertips poking out. Willie referred to them as sweater paw days and he had the routine down pat by now.ORJust hop on your board, hold on to my sleeve and let’s go. We’re on a mission
Relationships: Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Series: His Last Name [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2209176
Comments: 5
Kudos: 60





	Wherever You Stray, I Follow

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back to fic with Kiwi, we’re here with the second installment of clueless gays who are secretly married, 
> 
> This is part 2 in the His Last Name series and takes place about 4 months before His Last Name so they’ve been married for about eight months but Alex doesn’t know yet. You’ll probably be able to follow along without reading last name but it’s super short and very much a crack fic if you wanted to read that first.
> 
> This one is a bit more serious but it’s still got the same feel as Last Name. 
> 
> As always, I thrive off comments and kudos so please let me know what you think! :)

In the four years they had been friends, two years they had been roommates and eight months they had been married, Willie had learned a lot about Alex. He took his coffee with enough sugar to give the average person a sugar rush followed by a pounding headache, and he drank it like it was nothing.   
  


He kept his hair longer on top so that he could hide behind it if he needed to. Not that he did all that often anymore, instead he was tossing it out of his eyes frequently and with increasing irritation, until he finally grabbed it with both hands and  _ shoved _ it behind his ears. Even with all that though, he refused to either cut it so it wasn’t in his face, or grow it out enough that he could pull it back. Willie would like to officially state for the record that the last suggestion was  _ not _ because he thinks he might actually die if he saw Alex with his hair up in a bun. It wasn’t. Okay, maybe just a bit. 

Alex was a morning person in the sense that he woke up early because of his body’s natural rhythm, but he was cranky about it. He hated life and shouldn’t be spoken to, until he had his first cup of coffee laden with an obscene amount of sugar. He hauled himself out of bed in the mornings, blanket around his shoulders, and perched on the arm of the couch, glaring at the wall until the coffee machine beeped. He would add sugar and milk, still glaring at the wall and disappear back into his room clutching the cup in both hands, blanket carefully tucked under his elbow in order to keep it secured. Willie wouldn’t see him again until thirty minutes later when he emerged from his room, dressed and his usual happy if slightly reserved self. Willie just pretended he’d never even _ heard  _ of an Alex, let alone witnessed one in his apartment, until Alex was fully caffeinated. 

Alex was smart, so incredibly smart and Willie could listen to him talk about classic literature and tropes for hours. The term Alex wrote a ten page paper on symbolism in Pride and Prejudice, was one of the best few weeks of Willie’s life because Alex had  _ opinions _ and he wasn’t afraid to share them. Willie really only had to ask a single, small question and Alex was off. It was  _ amazing _ . 

Alex’s favorite hoodie was the light pink one he’d had forever. The soft fabric had been a source of comfort for years. It was his favorite article of clothing hands down, but Alex also ran warm. He usually had the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, which Willie was more than okay with.

It was also the hoodie that he wore when he was having a bad day. When the stress was a little harder to deal with than usual. Or when his parents were a little too much. On those days, Alex had the sleeves pulled all the way down with only his fingertips poking out. Willie referred to them as sweater paw days and he had the routine down pat by now. 

Today was a sweater paws day. Willie unlocked the door to their apartment and Alex was sitting on the kitchen counter staring at the wall. He was oddly still for a guy that was constantly moving. He usually radiated nervous energy and was always moving if he wasn’t asleep, even if it was just small movements. Jiggling legs, wiggling toes, tapping fingers or playing with the gold chain around his neck, running it between his finger tips. Willie didn’t think Alex actually knew how to stay still if he wasn’t asleep.

So he was a bit surprised to walk in and see Alex completely motionless. Setting his keys down on the table he approached Alex slowly, stopping a bit aways from him. 

“Hey Bro, You okay?”

Alex snapped out of staring at the wall, turning to look at Willie, he fiddled with the edge of his sleeves. 

“Yeah, my parents just don’t freaking listen to anything I say. It doesn’t even matter what it is!”

Ah, so it was an ‘Alex’s parents are the worst’ sweater paw day. Those were always fun. Willie watched as Alex hopped off the counter and started pacing in the kitchen, back and forth, back and forth. 

Alright time to move this party outside, pacing didn’t actually help Alex at all. The movement did but after a few minutes he just felt trapped and that made the stress worse. So when Alex paused to take a breath, Willie cut in quickly.

“Hey, you wanna take a walk?”

Alex nodded, still pacing and pulled the sleeves further down his hands. 

“Give me two seconds to change and grab my board and we can go okay?”

Alex nodded again and Willie ran for his room. Closing the door behind him, he threw off his work clothes and slipped on a pair of cargo shorts and a t-shirt. Grabbing his shoes from the floor and his board from its place near the door, he hurried to the living room.

Alex was still pacing in the kitchen but he’d migrated to sticking his hands in the kangaroo pouch of the hoodie. Willie glanced down. Yep, Alex was still in his socks. They were cute socks with little hot dogs on them. Willie had gotten them for Alex’s birthday two years ago. He was slowly supplying Alex with a collection of hotdog themed items. 

_ Last month he’d come home and tossed a shirt at Alex where he was lying stretched out on the couch.The black shirt had an image of a cartoon pug reclining on a beach towel, drink in hand with a beach umbrella shading him. At his questioning look, Willie smirked.  _

_ “It’s a hot dog.” _

_ Alex had looked confused for half a second before he groaned, rolling his eyes and throwing balled up paper at Willie.  _

_ “You’re the worst.” _

_ “Don’t lie bro, you know you love me.” _

_ “God knows why.” But he smiled when he said it and he didn’t let Willie take the shirt back when he reached for it, clutching it to his chest with a hissed ‘mine’. He wore it all the time and to the strangest places, much to the amusement of his band. He’d worn it to brunch with the band and Julie’s dad and brother last week. Carlos loved it.  _

Pulling himself out of the memory, Willie refocused. “Alex, you need shoes before we can go. Where’d you leave them.” 

That drew Alex out of his head a bit and he eyed Willie, “On the shoe rack by the front door where they go. Where else would I put them?”

“Just checking, Hot Dog. Let’s go.”

In less than two minutes, they were downstairs and outside. Willie took a second to secure his helmet and hop on his board. Wrapping a hand in Alex’s sleeve, they were off, moving quickly down the sidewalk and dodging other pedestrians. 

Willie had learned quickly that while going for a walk was the best way to help Alex work through anything, it was harder for Willie. Alex was taller than him, he definitely had longer legs and he walked fast on a normal day. When he was stressed, there was no way Willie could keep up with him. It only took a few times of asking Alex to slow down, so he didn’t have to run to keep up, before Alex just told him to get on his board and hold on. 

So that’s what they did now. On sweater paw days, Willie got his board and they went for a walk. He made sure he had a good grip on Alex’s hoodie and they kept moving until Alex was done. Not only was Alex able to burn off the extra energy and stress, he talked through it with Willie and didn’t just hold it all in. 

“Okay, what happened with your parent’s today?”

Alex sighed, and shoved his hair out of his face with the hand Willie wasn’t attached to, before speeding up a bit. “

“They just don’t listen to me at all. It doesn’t matter what I say. Whether it’s about school, or hobbies, or my life, or my sexuality, they just don’t hear me. I honestly don’t know if they don’t listen to me or if they don’t care. I don’t even know why I bother telling them things anymore.” 

Willie couldn’t tell if Alex wanted to cry or yell, maybe both. His parents were the worst. Willie had only actually met them a few times but each time he got the idea that it was all about appearances for them. As long as everything looked perfect, they didn’t care what was happening. They’d given up on Alex meeting their perfect ideal years ago but that didn’t stop them from bugging him about his choices. 

It was less about Alex being perfect now and more about getting him in line. They were just waiting for him to snap out of his ‘rebellious phase’ and settle down in a nice, steady,  _ boring _ job, marry a good Christian woman and have two-point-five kids. Alex wasn’t sure if they even actually listened to him but Willie thought they had to. Alex was about as subtle as a brick, there was no way his parents didn’t know that he was a literature and history major, or that he was very, very gay. 

It was one of the reasons they had gotten married. Alex had made a very convincing powerpoint, it was adorable and Willie was halfway in love with him already, so he had said yes. The idea of pissing off Alex’s parents  _ and  _ Uncle Caleb was too tempting to give up. Also he got to marry  _ Alex _ , which was the best part out of it. Things hadn’t changed after they got married and that was okay. They were mostly platonic and Willie was cool with that. As Alex had said, they were bro’s. He wouldn’t mind if they were real married, it would be kind of awesome in fact, but he wasn’t endlessly pining either. He wasn’t exactly sure how to explain it but there was an important distinction in his head. 

“I had just gotten done telling them about the project that was worth half my grade, that I had just finished  _ and _ gotten an A on, and they interrupted me to tell me about this nice girl they met at church. Apparently, she is single and ready to mingle. Dad insists that I come home for dinner on Sunday because she’s coming over. They don’t  _ listen _ to me!” 

Okay, Willie was lost. Hadn’t Alex told them he was married? That was one of the points on his powerpoint. It was a very well done powerpoint if Willie was being honest. It was pink and it had visual aids. Alex had borrowed the dowling that was used as extra protection in the sliding door of the hotel balcony, as a pointer stick. It was a bit too big to use as a pointer stick but Alex made it work and only came close to taking an eye out once. It was kind of impressive. But the point was that Alex should have told his parents they were married. You can’t just de-gay a marriage. It was legal and everything. 

“They just wouldn’t stop, they kept pushing and pushing. I was sick of telling them no, so I panicked. And um..”

The last bit was mumbled so quietly that Willie couldn’t hear Alex. “What?”

“I said, I told them we were dating.”

Huh, Alex definitely hadn’t told his parents they were married. What the hell? He hadn’t mentioned the marriage at all but it wasn’t a big deal. They were still just bros. Alex definitely remembered that they were married right? Alex was drunk but he wasn’t that drunk. Willie wouldn’t have married Alex if he was that drunk. Alex had to remember. Maybe he just hadn’t told his parents yet for some reason and didn’t want to spring a marriage on them. Maybe Alex was planning to start with telling his parents they were dating and then announce the marriage in a few months. Yeah, that had to be it.    
“Whatever you wanna call it, hotdog.”

Alex breathed a sigh of relief, relaxing. Willie had thought he looked tense but it was hard to tell when he was smothered in a fluffy pink hoodie. Alex slowed down so he was only going slightly faster than his usual pace and Willie tightened his grip on Alex’s sleeve to stay with him. 

So that had been what was bothering Alex. Not just his parents being assholes, he was worried that WIllie was mad Alex hadn’t told his parent’s they were married. 

“We’re all good, dude. We can be boyfriends if you want.” 

Alex glanced at him, relief in his eyes and a small smile forming, “Thank you, Willie.”

“No problem, hot dog. Wanna show up to Sunday dinner?”

Alex laughed, shaking his head. “I think my parents might actually die if I embarrass them in front of  _ Carrie _ .”    
  


Willie giggled, “Oh no, not in front of Carrie. Whatever would the church say?” He cleared his throat and looked at Alex, “Really though bro, just say when and where and I am always down to fuck with your parents”

“Thanks Willie.”

“Always.”

Now that Alex was feeling better, they were slowed to a pleasant walking place, and it was possible to actually appreciate the view. During Alex’s therapy walk, they’d ended up on the boardwalk, just as the sun was starting to set. There was a metaphor in there somewhere Willie was sure.

They had shifted so Willie was holding Alex’s hand instead of his hoodie sleeve. It was nice, different than what they normally did, but nice. Willie thought he could get used to this. Bathed in the colors of the sunset and the warmth of the setting sun, Alex’s hand in his, and the sound of the waves washing up on the sand. It was kind of perfect. 

~~~~

Alex took Willie up on his offer to scandalize Alex’s parents less than a month later, after they tried to set him up with Carrie, yet again. It was a wonderfully uncomfortable dinner, well, for Alex’s parents. 

Apparently Carrie and Alex had a little too much in common, if the bracelet in shades of pink, peach and white were any indication. She’d brought her roommate Flynn with her, afterall. Lovely girl, they even had matching bracelets. 

The four of them were getting brunch Tuesday. 

  
  



End file.
